With regards to the organisation of communication and cognisance in literary cultures, scriptures are meaningful in their own right. The various sciences involving the human being (generally known as the ‘Humanities’) discovered said meaning during the last third of the 20th century. The thereby enlarged discourse led to the issue of ‘orality vs. literacy’, which interprets writing as a form of written language, as a language rather than an image. Currently, a new trend, known as ‘notational iconicity’, is emerging, exploring both the aspect of iconographe in scripture as well as the notion of language-neutral scripture. In this context, scripture is considered a hybrid of language and iconography.

The above-­described concept is defined by two main lines of thought:

(a) Inscribing planar surfaces as cultural technique, driving force of culture, and repository of cultural activity
‘Scripture’ is defined by spatial and visual parameters. While we are familiar with the elementary forms of acoustic communication and audio signals used in the animal kingdome nothing remotely resembling either the iconography or graphic structure of human inscriptions can be found among less developed species. As a result, the use of scripture forms part of the extended field of graphic arts and can be classified as a cultural technique known as planar inscriptions. In this context, one might even say that inventing planar surfaces intended for inscription is as important for the mobility and creativity of the mind as the invention of the wheel was for the mobility and creativity of the body.

(b) The dual existence of scripture as both medium and tool
Scriptures used as semiotic systems can be characterised as objects; they are inherently functional. As such, scripture visualises phonemes, tonal sequences, and fluid movements and localises them in three-dimensional space. Scriptures transform thoughts, numbers, software commands, and the periodic table into planar arrangements. In turn, this translates into scripture being more than a descriptive medium for something lacking inherent visual or spatial qualities in its own right – it functions as a creative tool and acts as the operative medium of a productive process. It follows that scripture’s function is twofold; it operates as both medium and tool. Anything following a specific ordering principle can be rearranged to follow a different order. Mathematic scripts bear witness to just such operating principles of scripture. For this reason, it is paramount to understand scriptures existing independent of language (i.e. numerical scripts, formal notations, programming languages) as belonging to the existing field of traditional language‐oriented scriptures, as they are the basis for numerous cultural techniques.